Female Figure holding a Cushion 1643

This print of a female figure holding a cushion was made with engraving by the Monogrammist VCP in the mid-seventeenth century. The image has the soft focus and general appearance of a devotional image. Yet it also seems to participate in a robust Dutch tradition of depicting women in domestic interiors that often included satirical commentary on gender roles. The cushion held by the woman is suggestive. Was she depicted as a "woman of leisure"? Is she being ironically represented as someone who is incapable of more productive labor? The artist's signature appears twice in the print, which could be a sign of the artist's attempt to lay claim to the design. The fact that we can only refer to him by a monogram suggests the limitations of our knowledge about the image's creation. Art historians use various methods to understand images better. These include examining inventories of estates and reading literary sources from the period, such as poems, plays, and novels.